Zeke Meeks vs the Pain-in-the-Neck Pets

By D.L. Green and Josh Alves

Zeke wants to bring home the class guinea pig, Poopster, but his mom insists he's not responsible enough. To prove he can handle it, he promises to take care of the family dog, Waggles, for a whole week. His week is filled with one disaster after another. Will taking care of Poopster be worth it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
• Release date: May 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781479559794

D.L. Green

D.L. Green lives in California with her husband, three children, silly dog, and a big collection of rubber chickens. She loves to read, write, and joke around.

Book preview

Cover

It was Monday, the worst day of the week. It was morning, the worst time of day. It was raining, the worst kind of weather. I was in class, the worst place to be. I was so unhappy.

Hi, Zeke. I’m so happy, my friend Danny Ford said.

How can you be happy on a rainy Monday morning at school? Did your brain ooze out of your head? I asked.

Danny moved his fingers all over his head.

Then he said, I don’t feel any squishiness in my hair or any holes in my head. My brain must be safe inside my head. I’m happy because I’m returning Poopster to the classroom. I took care of him at my house all weekend. It was really hard.

I looked at Poopster, our cute little class hamster. He was sleeping in his cage, as usual. Taking care of him would be easy.

Poopster was so much trouble. He ruined my weekend, Danny said.

Danny must have lost his brain. Maybe he had showered after his brain had oozed out of his head. Then his hair wouldn’t be squishy, and his brain would be down the drain.

I would love to bring Poopster home for the weekend. Poopster could sit on my lap while I watched TV and played video games. I could train him to play dead and then jump up and scare people. We’d have so much fun.

I walked over to Mr. McNutty, my teacher, and told him, I’d like to take Poopster home on Friday.

Have you cared for a hamster before? Mr. McNutty asked me.

Of course, I said. I cared very much for Poopster. I was crazy about him.

Good. Mr. McNutty handed me a book. Make sure you read this book about hamsters. And we’ll discuss hamster care at lunchtime on Friday.

Thank you, I said. Though I wasn’t happy about spending lunchtime with my teacher instead of my friends.

The morning bell rang. I spent the rest of the day being tortured. I won’t torture you with the details. In summary:

I had to do math problems that would have made Albert Einstein cry.

I was forced to do a dumb craft project using purple flowers and pink hearts.

We had a rainy day lunch schedule. That meant staying in the boring classroom and watching a boring movie about boring people in boring places doing boring things.

I finally got home about a million hours later. Waggles jumped all over me. Waggles is our dog. He is the greatest dog ever. He has the worst name ever. He was named by Alexa and Mia, the most annoying sisters ever.

Waggles was wearing a pink ballet tutu. My sisters liked to dress him up in girly stuff. As I said, they are